The easiest little getaway ever: recommend!

Do you ever want to get away just for a little bit? No big time or money commitment, but just take a little break?
That’s what we wanted a couple of weeks ago when my brother and sister-in-law came to visit. They had spent a long weekend in Knoxville and planned to continue their vacation in [...]

Our Scripps Networks pal parties with an Oscar winner following her “May of Madness”

Hey, that’s my old buddy Cindy McConkey with whom I worked at The Knoxville Journal many years ago when we were both aggressive young reporters and editors! (The Journal was a daily paper owned by Gannett for most of the time we were there.)
Only, lucky her, she’s pictured here with Academy Award winner Jeff Bridges, [...]

A non-gambler goes to Las Vegas. Why?

I love Times Square. Whenever we go to New York, I always want to stay right on Times Square. I leave the curtains open so that when I wake up at 3 a.m., which I always do, I can see all the beautiful lights.
It’s for that reason that I fully expected to be just as [...]

10K-a-day: It ain’t easy!

It’s 38 steps around Gay Lyons’ kitchen. It’s 630 steps around the unoccupied space on the 3rd floor of the historic Miller’s Building downtown. It’s about 500 steps around Market Square, depending on how far you go on the TVA end.
Why do I know this? Because for six weeks recently, some friends from Moxley Carmichael [...]

Mardi Growl brings out the cutest faces in town!

A continual drizzle Saturday could not dampen the spirits of hundreds of dogs and their people at the 4th annual Mardi Growl dog parade in downtown Knoxville. Quite the contrary. Dogs and humans in very size, shape and variety were unfailingly cheerful as they crowded Gay Street for the parade and Market Square for the [...]

Purses, motorcycles, couture dresses and termites! Or, what I saw at the Women Today Expo.

Girlfriends (and brave guy friends!), get yourself over to the News Sentinel’s Women Today Expo at the Knoxville Convention Center sometime this weekend!
And next year, plan to experience it as I did — during the “Women’s Wine Down” event the night before it opens. That’s when,

Knoxvillians gather to meet visiting PBS exec; she says PBS will focus on children, art and history

The smallest public TV station in the country is in Cookeville, TN.
In some parts of Alaska, the public TV station is the only TV station on the air.
Public TV reaches 99 percent of the United States.

These were just a few of the facts that Public Broadcasting Service CEO Paula Kerger shared with about 60 folks [...]

Cornbread on Joy Street

In Luke 4:4, Jesus says, “It is written. Man cannot live by bread alone.” John B. Waters Jr. would add, “Unless it’s cornbread!”
Mr. Waters, the well-known Sevierville lawyer and former chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority Board of Directors, has published a charming little essay on the subject of cornbread. He mailed it to several [...]

Nothing says “Happy Thanksgiving” like a big purple octopus — or, my holidays in Alabama

We have been driving the highways from Knoxville to Gulf Shores, Ala., for as long as we’ve been married, which is 26 years. And the sights I see along the way — and when we get there — never cease to crack me up.
For some reason, during this holiday season, I found them even funnier [...]

These folks really know how to do Christmas — and they share their special home for a good cause!

You haven’t really done Christmas to the max until you have done it at the historic Middlebrook, the beautiful circa 1845 residence owned by Rick Fox at 4001 Middlebrook Pike. Fox and his partner,  Ralph Cianelli, every year transform the house into a Christmas wonderland with collections of ornaments from all over the world adorning [...]